Gifts and Consequences by Daniel Coleman Page A

girls.  He found they were the only thing he could think about.
    He tried to force his legs to carry him toward the shed.  One step , he thought.  One step then another .  Time and again his legs refused.
    “I’m done,” he said and walked back toward the office.  “Freddy can dig his own damn ditch.” 
    He didn't feel the slightest guilt about swearing on Sunday.
     
    #####
     
    Jonathan heard the words as he sat in Control looking over Cheryl’s shoulder at the surveillance video.  “Don’t do it, Dexter.  Hang in there.”
    In a disheartened voice, Cheryl said, “I think it’s over.  We’ve seen that look before.”
    As much as he wanted to argue, Jonathan knew she was right.
     

 
Chapter Twelve
     
     
    Five o’clock.  Time to stop for dinner.  Allen paused his iPod, angled to the treeline, dropped his backpack, and plopped down next to it in the shade.  There were no restaurants or stores along this stretch of Interstate 80 through Illinois.  The farther west he walked, the more civilization spread out. 
    The label of the MRE he pulled from his backpack read Spaghetti with Meat Sauce .  He activated the heating element on the noodle packet and returned the hot cocoa mix to his backpack.  The vegetable cracker and cheese spread went into the accessible pocket on one side of his pack and the peanut butter crackers and M&M’s filled the pocket on the other side.  He could eat those foods along the way.  He removed the fork from the accessory packet but the rest of it went into the garbage bag in his backpack.
    He originally planned on eating all his meals on foot, but he spilled beef stew on himself the first time he tried it.  Some of his clothes had to last him more than one day.  Being a cross-country walker meant constant body odor.  He didn’t want to top it with rotting food.
    Though it killed him to alter his carefully laid out schedule, he decided to take twelve minutes to heat and eat the entrée each day, and work on the side dishes along the way.  He’d arrive twelve minutes later to his destination every night, but once he put it into the schedule it was bearable. 
    The packages awaiting him when he checked into the various motels contained snacks such as nuts, granola, dried fruit, beef jerky and sundries like new socks and moleskin.  Every detail meticulously planned before he took his first step.
    After six minutes his spaghetti was warm, and six minutes after that he’d finished eating it.  He loaded up his backpack, left his earbuds in his fanny pack and started walking.  He was done with his daily Bible ration and already listened to three chapters of The Fountainhead.  The rest of the day would be split between Blue Collar Comedy and music after he walked in silence for a while. 
    As he snacked on the peanut butter crackers he thought back to a Bible passage he heard earlier in the morning.  “ When the Lord hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold .”  It came from the Book of Job.
    “More like, when the Lord hath tried me, my nerves will be as frazzled as the halyard on a 50-year-old ladder.”
    Though he had planned as thoroughly as possible, the details of the trek taxed him much more than he expected.  If it was simply a matter of keeping his word of the contract with the stranger he would have taken a Greyhound back to Detroit weeks ago.  His word wasn’t worth this much.  But Yvonne’s life was.
    A few months before, Allen and Yvonne had the perfect life, much like Job before his trial.  One morning Yvonne couldn’t walk strait or recall the names of simple items.  Two days later, results of a tonsil biopsy confirmed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative brain disorder.  They explored every option, but were told there was no cure.
    As Allen walked, the memory of that night in the hospital played back in his mind.  For a long time he and Yvonne sat in the coldly clean scent of her hospital room.  Constant irregular beeping played in